When commercial banks overlend to large corporations so their
investment banking arms can collect huge fees, there is a tremendous
risk to the banking system.

The worst cases of overvaluation in this stock market—the ones that
would cause the greatest disaster should the market go down during a
recession—are those where the fundamentals (based on an accountant’s
audited statements) have no influence on the stock prices. The price
of these “story stocks” is influenced instead by momentum trading,
investor euphoria and optimistic projections that may never
materialize.

Blaming the accountants for trivial differences in the treatment of
various items is just an attempt to divert the blame for a possible
disaster from Wall Street to the accounting profession.